(AFP) – Outgoing New York mayor Eric Adams endorsed former state governor Andrew Cuomo in the November mayoral election, The New York Times reported Thursday. Adams, who has been mired in corruption allegations linked to his term in office, dropped out of the race on September 28 but did not initially endorse a rival.
Cuomo, a former governor of New York, is trailing the race’s frontrunner, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, while the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa is a distant third. The election is on November 4.
“I think that it is imperative to really wake up the Black and brown communities that have suffered from gentrification on how important this race is,” Adams told The Times in an interview. “I’m going to walk with the governor in those neighborhoods and get them engaged.”
Adams has had a rocky relationship with Cuomo previously, calling the former governor a “snake and a liar” for reportedly pressuring him to quit the race. Mamdani mocked the endorsement, re-tweeting a Times article on the issue and writing “The Art of the Deal” on X, a reference to President Donald Trump’s ghostwritten memoir-business bible.
“It’s no surprise to see two men who share an affinity for corruption and Trump capitulation align themselves at the behest of the billionaire class and the President himself,” Mamdani wrote in a statement. It is unclear what impact Adams’s endorsement will have on the race.
In the last citywide poll before Adams dropped out, commissioned by Fox News and carried out between September 18 and 22, Adams was polling 7 percent. Mamdani had a 43 percent score and led Cuomo by 11 points in the latest citywide poll, conducted by Patriot Polling between October 18 and 19. Sliwa was at 19 percent.
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